Do you have to answer all the questions on an IB exam?

Question

like the SAT and AP exams, do you HAVE to answer all the questions in an HL IB exam?

Answer 1

It depends. For a lot of the papers, you have choice. Examples of choice:



In Paper 2 for any of the sciences, you pick one "extended" response (basically one specific topic on the subject e.g. acids and bases). In Paper 3 (it's called the options paper lol) you pick 2 options out of 6 or so (usually the 2 that your teacher taught you).



In English paper 1, you write a commentary on 1 of the 2 extracts. In paper 2, there is a whole list of questions for you to choose and write a comparative paper on.



In Economics, you can choose 1 from 3 choices for long answers, 3 from 5 (short answers), and 1 from 2 (data response).



Examples when there is no choice:



Math papers - you have to answer all the questions

Paper 1 for sciences: they are multiple choice questions.





Finally, you don't "have to" answer the questions - if you don't know the answers...but then you'll just fail, that's all.

Answer 2

Having marked tens of thousands of papers I take a very dim view of this approach. I don't just take the first two. I see if there are two correct answers then deduct a mark for each irrelevant or wrong answer. So if the student gives five correct answers they will receive their marks. And deserve them. But if they give four correct answers and one incorrect one they would only get one mark. Because they were not accurate or confident in their physics. In other words answer the question , the whole question, and nothing but the question if you want to do the best that you can.

Answer 3

No you dont, you just have to make sure you dont get them wrong so you can get a good score.